It was. But then white passed when future territory of white still had a hole and white accepted to not marking territory in scoring phase.
So now we have hard philosophical dilemma. Tens of posts of discussion in two different topics.
Uberdude(very high level dan) thinks by Japanese rules black won.
I think, Japanese rules are weird and OGS should has its own improved version - so we, weak kyu, don’t waste time of mods after each “error” and have many of our games annuled. When beginner knows how to play better than other beginners, but has problems with searching for holes in endgame, he should has higher rank than other beginners, I think. Ability to find holes will come later but if scoring will be very harsh, they may quit Go before it.
“Has problem searching for holes” is a funny way to describe it. The player actually has to click to accept the scoring despite the board literally displaying that the territory is not owned by anyone. So it requires either unfamiliarity with the interface, or else very poorly understanding the rules.
Someone who had some familiarity with the interface and some basic understanding of the rules would have to be really really really bad at searching for holes once the scoring tool itself tells them “there is a hole” by visibly refusing to mark the territory that they think they should own, so searching for holes isn’t the issue, it’s understanding even what the rules are.
And enforcing some complex AI territory estimation - which is also going to mysteriously sometimes mark perfectly surrounded hole-less regions as not being your territory too and add more confusion! - might not do the best job to help someone be less confused about the interface or about the rules for future games.
How about adding a dialogue box that triggers whenever a player tries to end the game and there are more than about (edge length of board, e.g. 19, or 9) empty spaces on the board that are not owned by either player, and says something like:
“A significant number of empty board points are not currently being counted as territory. Are you sure you have marked the stones you think are dead and and all territory think you should own is marked with your color? (You can resume the game if you or your opponent need additional moves to finish completely closing the borders or to fight out an unsettled area).”
And buttons “Yes, score now” and “No, go back”.
And an optional checkbox “Do not show this message again”.
Such a dialogue box would hopefully be a nudge that helps with understanding the interface and the game ending process for the rules, and would not need any complex AI at all.
Haha, firstly because I failed to check that my answer was about a week late and secondly because of the dilemma you mentioned, hadn’t thought about that （´∀｀）
I’m located in Japan and sometimes help out at children’s tournaments. This game, if it would arise at the tournament would be counted as a win for white (they would be allowed to add a stone). As long as the situation is clear (there are no forgotten dead stones around and such) and the situation can be remedied in a simple way with consent of both the players. I’ve never been made aware of a rule set dealing with these kind of situations actually but the focus of the tournaments is clearly on “let the children have fun and learn a bit”. It’s certainly not a cut-throat environment. I think that it’s perceived a non-problem, i.e. when both players are of the level that they forgot to (or are unable to) finish properly they will automatically be helped.
I guess that it all depends on the environment where the game happens, in paid entry adult/ veteran players setting I guess the game would be ruled void, a 0 - 0 result.
Anyway, I can see that online games might pose a bit of a problem (;^ω^)